As am a bit confused about object damage. On page 224 of the second printing it says that "...Unlike damage inflicted to standard NPCs, damage is inflicted to items does not linger" and goes on to mention special vehicle damage rules on page 289 that mostly deal with crits, defense bonuses, etc.

Does this mean that the damage does not linger for the round, or attack, or what?Do damage saves not linger as well?

If the damage only applies for the hit, that means that if I want to destroy a typical combat aircraft (huge object) I have to make it fail 6 saves. Even if I reduce the enemy damage save bonus to +0 with an amount of AP, they get the D20 roll and basically get 6d20 against whatever damage I roll (lets say 5d10 (AP 50) with rockets). if by damage not lingering it also means failed damage saves do not linger it seems fairly unlikely that I will ever destroy a typical combat aircraft (or any huge objects) with any number of cruise missiles! An enormous object gets 15 damage saves, and thus 15d20 save die, even if the damage save bonus is reduced to zero this is quite a few die, and a lot more than any single weapon pick in the game.

I probably missed an important passage and the rules for this are fairly straight forwards. Hopefully I can get some input from a Crafty_Pat or something. Thanks for any input.

Examples:You shoot your sample aircraft, and do 8 damage. It makes a damage save (DC14). If it passes that save it's accumulated damage is reset to zero - so you shoot it again for 8 damage and it's another DC14 save (an NPC would be making a DC18 save at the second shot).

If it failed the first save it would be down a damage save, and one step closer to being destroyed (until repaired). This failed damage save doesn't go anywhere - it's failed. So the second attack could also make it fail another save, putting it 2 of 6 down. The second attack can be in the same round, the same scene or any other time - as long as the damage wasn't repaired by an external force (a technician or engineer, for example).

Disclaimer: Some sci-fi campaigns might have autorepairing/regenerative vehicles or such, this explanation doesn't apply to them.

The important sentence prior to "Unlike damage inflicted to standard NPCs (see page 331), damage inflicted to items does not linger." is "When an itemís Damage save is successful, the item may suffer scratches, dings, and other cosmetic flaws, but the attack has no mechanical effect."

So when the Damage Save is successful none of the damage lingers for future hits.

For example, let's contrast an NPC (Damage Save +5) and an object, in this case a main battle tank (Damage Save 8/+35). You are firing a RSA SVU (1d8+2 damage, no AP). Your first shot hits and does 7 damage. NPC makes a damage save (+5) at DC 13 and lets say he make it. Main battle tanks makes a damage save (+35) at DC 13 and of course makes it. Your second shot hits and does 10 damage. NPC makes a damage save (+5) at DC 18 (the 7 initial damage and 10 subsequent damage both apply).. Main battle tanks makes a damage save (+35) at DC 15 (after succeeding on the previous roll, the tank, like all objects, does not keep lingering damage) and of course makes it.

As you can see from the above, NPCs can accumulate damage, but that puny rifle is never going to be able to bring down the main battle tank as it needs to force a failed damage save in a single hit which isn't going to happen.

Ok, so lets bring down the main battle tank. Let's hit it with a High Explosive Cruise Missile just for fun (8d10 damage, AP 40,BLST). Let say the damage is average at 44. The AP 40 reduces the tanks Damage Save to -5. Assuming an average Damage Save of 5 (10 on the die + a -5 save) the tank will fail 4 Damage Saves from the strike and be only a point off a 5th fail. Since the tank can fail 8 saves, it would still be functional, though a second hit would likely bring it down. If the attack managed to get a critical hit (which would cost 2 dice to activate since the target is huge) then the failed damage saves is doubled, which could break the tank in a single hit.